


John and Sherlock Break Tumblr

by cwb



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blogging, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Developing Relationship, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Getting Together, Kissing, Love, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Requited Love, Tongues, Tumblr, asks, deducethis, followers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 03:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10913469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwb/pseuds/cwb
Summary: Sherlock and John make a bet to see who can get the most followers on Tumblr. The winner gets anything he wants.





	John and Sherlock Break Tumblr

**Author's Note:**

> So ... a few days ago I asked for two more followers and I got a ton more than that. I had said I'd write 100 words for each new follower, and so here we are, 4400+ words later. Thank you!
> 
> Here it is on [Tumblr](https://conversationswithjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/160696888334/hello-hello-hello-two-days-ago-i-asked-for-two) if you'd care to reblog (reblogs make me happy).
> 
> Thank you Happierstill, who helped me make this better.
> 
> ...
> 
> Please note that this fic used to contain images, but then photobucket decided to ask $400 for 3rd part hosting and all of my links were broken. I've had to edit the fic accordingly.

“But _why_ does it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter, not really, but it kind of feels good when someone new follows you.”

“But you don’t even _know_ those people. What does it even matter if they follow you?”

“It just means they like your blog and want to see it on their dash.”

Sherlock rubbed the heel of his hand over his forehead and grimaced. “Dash?”

“What they see when they open Tumblr, other than their own blog. All the posts of the blogs I’m following show up on what is called my dash. It's short for dashboard.”

“This is a ludicrous waste of your time.” Sherlock turned away from the desk and then immediately swiveled back again. “How many followers do you have?”

John clicked to his activity page and pointed at the number while reading it out loud. “3,187.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! And you mostly blog about our cases? That many people care?”

“I guess. But I also blog photos from around London, and the occasional selfie, and little quotes from Mrs Hudson. I’ve got a whole tag dedicated to all the times she says, ‘Not your housekeeper!’ and then does the housekeeping.”

“Tag?”

“Nevermind. I’ll explain that later. My followers especially like it when I post quotes from you.”

“Me? I thought the things I say were boring _._ ”

“Well, on your The Science of Deduction blog, yeah, they are. Here, look, I have a tag called ‘Holmes says’ and you can see what kinds of things I’m talking about.”

Sherlock grabbed the laptop off the desk and sat down in his chair with it. “‘What happened to the maggot infested pig bladder I had in the crisper? But I was going to use that!’ John. John, no. Why would you post that?”

“Because people like it.”

“They like it? Why do they like it? It makes no sense out of context. You haven't explained the nature of the experiment, or the difficulty I had obtaining a pig bladder infected with hepatitis, or the importance of reaching a critical mass of maggots. This makes no sense without all of that other information.”

John smirked and threw his hands up. “Exactly! That's what makes it so funny!”

“You think it's funny that my pig bladder went missing?”

“You know Mrs Hudson binned it, right, in one of her just-this-once moments?”

“Don't tell me, you have a tag for that, too.”

“I don't, but it's a great idea.” John took his laptop back from Sherlock and started two-finger tapping at the keyboard.

“Do you think I should try it?”

“Try what?” John answered, his tongue sneaking out to lick his lower lip.

“A Tumblr thing. Blog,” Sherlock answered, trying to ignore the flutter in his stomach over the sight of said tongue. Maybe he was just hungry.

John blinked a few times, turning in his seat to look squarely at Sherlock. “Well, I'm not sure. Why would you?”

“Oh, I don't know, to get more followers than you and prove how silly the whole thing is?”

“Must you compete with me over everything?”

“I see it more as an experiment in proving the pointlessness of chasing followers than competitiveness.”

“An experiment.”

“That's what I just said, yes. I'll have more followers than you by posting absolute drivel, thus proving that anyone can post anything and be quote-unquote _popular_.”

“Fine. You're on your own, though. I've had my blog for two months, so shall we say that in that timeframe you have to surpass the number I’m at now to beat me? We won’t count any followers I gain after today.”

Sherlock waved his hand in the air and then inspected his fingernails. “No handicaps of that nature will be necessary. Give me four weeks and I'll have surpassed whatever number you achieve by then.”

“Bloody unlikely.”

“Care to put a wager on it?”

“Absolutely. What do you want to bet?”

Sherlock gave John a long, hard look. “Anything you want, John. If you win, you choose. If I win, I choose.”

John wagged a finger between them. “Except body parts. You can't have one of my kidneys or anything like that.”

“Don't be ridiculous. I'd never take a body part from you while you were still living, John.”

“Why am I not comforted by that thought?”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

Sherlock spent hours reading everything he could about templates, profile photos, reblogging, sideblogs, likes, xkit, messaging, asks, queues, the eight types of posts he could make, and so on.

He created a blog with a placeholder name (which was actually _placeholdername_ ), and before he'd even made his first post he had six followers, but they were all porn blogs, and John said they didn't count, so an amendment was added to the deal that porn blogs and bots would not be included in the total follower count. In fact, they both agreed to block any such blog that followed them. John immediately lost 163 followers.

Sherlock began setting up his own blog by testing independent variables. In the first week he assigned different names to his blog to see if that would affect his follower count. He changed his name every day and tracked all changes in an Excel spreadsheet. With no posts, he surmised that the changes in follower count could only be dependent on the name he chose.

Much to his chagrin, _SherlockHolmes_ was already taken, as was _WSSHolmes_ , _TheSmarterHolmesBrother_ , and _243KindsofAsh_. Of those that were available, _SherlSays_ picked up the least number of followers, while _Sherlocked_ did just a bit better, and _HoundsRUs_ picking up a slightly more respectable number of followers. _DeduceThis_ was by far the forerunner, so he decided to stick with that for the time being.

At that point Sherlock decided it was a good idea to start following other blogs to see which type was most likely to follow him, pornbots withstanding. Sherlock had to admit that he was slightly distracted by the amount of pornography of Tumblr. Although one to usually eschew filmography of a sexually graphic nature, he found that it was nearly impossible to avoid porn while searching everyday topics like _experiments, detective, chemistry,_ and _pudding._

He searched his own name and found porn gifs of two young actors who looked amazingly like him and John. Once he'd seen that, he couldn't unsee it. It played itself over and over again in his mind. Is that what John would look like with a penis—no particular penis, mind—in his mouth? Is that what John would look like while climaxing? Was that what Sherlock would look like if he ever gave in to his body's demands and had an orgasm?

And why were people from every corner of the globe pretending that he and John were doing these excessively carnal things to each other? It was bad enough that everyone thought they were a couple. Surely not all couples were fixated on providing mutual oral sex on tire swings in the forest as were the actors he saw in gifs on Tumblr?

Sherlock put the matter out of his head, which meant at the front door of his mind palace so he could find it easily when he wished to revisit it, and returned to the topic at hand, which was finding appropriate blogs to follow. Shockingly, Tumblr was bereft of chemistry blogs, and the ones he did find were filled with something called memes that seemed to poke fun of various chemical processes. No. Not for him. He followed the few legitimate chemistry blogs he could find, as well as general science blogs, three amateur detective blogs (laughable!), half a dozen London photography blogs, and before realizing it wasn’t legitimate, _JohnHamishHotson_.

Immediately he was followed back by the detective blogs plus six others of that genre, and twelve porn blogs.

Sherlock then set up another spreadsheet and started to track his post-to-hits and post-to-follower ratio. He picked five subjects and made sure to only post that subject matter for the duration of two days each. His results were conclusive. Sherlock gained zero followers when he posted about ash; two followers when he posted about solving crimes, eight when he posted crime scene photographs; ten after posting random London photographs; and, one-hundred-sixty-two new followers when he posted photos of kittens. He then tried other animals and had to spend an entire day prone on the couch, locked in his mind palace, trying to unravel the puzzle of why otters gained the most followers of any other type of post.

Sherlock was disgusted.

 

*** * ***

 

Meanwhile, John, too, was cleaning up his processes and testing the parameters of follower gathering. Unsurprisingly, he learned that he gained quite a few followers when he posted about Sherlock, but even more when he posted about him and Sherlock doing things together (a post about how annoying Sherlock was when they went to Tesco got over three-hundred notes and resulted in sixteen new followers), and the most when he posted pictures of hedgehogs. John didn’t have high standards. He could post hedgehogs all day long. 

What truly perplexed John, however, and it’s true that John spent a lot of time being perplexed, was why people seemed so interested in him and Sherlock _together_. Whenever he made what he came to think of as a _together_ post, his ask box would flood with inquiries about the two of them.

John ignored all of these asks but didn’t delete them. He did, however, delete the one that said that hedgehogs and otters were sexy together.

Halfway through the second week, John checked in with Sherlock. “How’s your follower count?”

“My follower count is excellent, thank you. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. Are you getting close to my number yet?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out in precisely eighteen days.”

“Fine. I’ll have you know that I have a few tricks up my sleeve and have gained a substantial number of blogs since we started this little bet.”

“I do not take on ‘little bets,’ John. This endeavor, like any I choose to pursue, is based on the principles of science and is worthy of my undivided attention. I will win, and you will give me whatever I ask for.”

“You’re kind of scaring me there, _DeduceThis_.”

“Ah. So, you found me.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t hard. What’s with the otters?”

 

*** * ***

 

“What's with the hedgehogs?” Sherlock flounced onto the couch, turned his back to John, and yanked his dressing gown up and over his legs, thus cocooning himself and the mystery of the otters away from John for the rest of the afternoon.

He decided to grace John with his presence once again only after John had ordered his favorite green curry from his favorite Thai restaurant and laid it out on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“So, are you getting any asks yet?” John asked.

“A few. One was curious about a body fluid that was difficult to identify from the photo I posted; the second was a graduate level chemistry question, and the third was some intelligible nonsense about otters and hedgehogs.”

“Ah. So you’re getting those, too?”

“Otter and hedgehog asks?”

“More about what they imply.”

“What do they imply?”

“You know.”

Sherlock would not admit that he did not know, so he took a giant bite of green curry eggplant and sweet potato, thereby setting his mouth on fire, gulped down half his Singha, and blew his nose before answering.

“People are idiots, John.”

“Right.”

Two-and-a-half weeks into the wager Sherlock logged onto Tumblr, checked his follower count, and frowned. He had lost ten followers. He pursed his lips and pressed his index fingers under his chin. Why had he lost followers? Had John lost followers too? If so, it would indicate a problem on Tumblr’s side and no wrongdoing of his own. After all, he had perfected his posting formula. He had computed the proper subject matter ratios (no more than three posts of any nature before throwing in an otter picture), he knew the exact times of day to post in order to ensure the highest number of potential new followers (between 7:00 pm and 11:00 pm), and he had set up his queue to do most of the work for him.

Then he noticed the little red dialogue box above the envelope icon. He had fifty-three new asks. Could people be unfollowing him because he hadn't checked his asks in over a week? He checked them.

There were seventeen from _TheWomanLovesKate_ , six from _YouStabThemMollySlabsThem_ , and twenty-one anonymous asks. Of those, five were links to otter blogs, four were links to otter memes, and twelve asked if he and John were together.

Were they together? Of course, they were together. They were flatmates, partners in solving crime (or actual crime, he supposed, eyeing his lock picks), and best friends. Something, however, niggled at the back of Sherlock’s mind. What did these anons mean, _together_? Did they mean … dating? After all, didn’t everyone from Angelo to Mrs. Hudson think they were dating? Why did everyone think they were dating? Should they be dating? Why should they be dating?

Or did they mean _together_ in the way all those porn blogs indicated people were quite literally together? Sherlock almost lost the rest of the afternoon reviewing key footage in his mind palace, but Mrs Hudson started Hoovering and the noise brought Sherlock's focus back to the matter at hand. The asks.

The problem, of course, with anonymous asks, was that Sherlock couldn’t respond to them privately, and he certainly wasn’t going to respond to them publicly. A cipher was necessary. He composed his next post very carefully.

Within two hours Sherlock’s anon had sent another ask from a blog titled _ohmygodjustkissalready_. Silly name aside, Sherlock was appreciative of the quick response. He crafted his message as quickly as possible, then hit the send button.

Almost immediately he received two asks from _ohmygodjustkissalready_ that, when read together, said, “This is what I meant when I said it would be over before you knew it: you cannot live inside the bubble of tension forever, because the tension will eventually turn into a permanent realm of inaction, and what once felt like charged air between you will come to feel like bloated regret. It will smother you until the day comes that you think of him and all you feel is sad. So do it. Take charge. All of your followers (and I bet 95% of them are following both of you) are behind you in this.”

The conversation continued over the course of a dozen exchanges, and by the time Sherlock had parsed the information he’d asked for (how did they know John felt that way, how did they know Sherlock felt that way, how to broach the subject, who were the porn actors that looked just like him and John, what was with the otters and hedgehogs) it was dusk and John was returning home from a shift at the surgery.

“John,” Sherlock started as soon as John was in the flat, “what do you think of when I say the word _together_.”

“Is this for a crossword puzzle or something?” John asked as he shook his jacket off and hung it on the peg next to Sherlock's Belstaff.

“No.”

“All right, then. United.”

“Another.”

“Connected.”

“Really? Would you say that Molly and Gavin are connected?”

John giggled. “Guess it would depend on what they were up to when you asked. Wait, are they? Together?”

“Aren't they? They should be. It's obvious he has a thing for her, and she for him.”

“Maybe it's not obvious to them, about the other, I mean.”

Sherlock rocketed out of his chair and clapped his hands. “John! You're a genius!”

“Really?”

“No, but close enough for today's exercise.”

It all became frighteningly clear. The tenuous understanding Sherlock had had of the tension between them, that fizzle of electricity that existed long after a case was over, the glances and touches that could have meant more than friendship if only Sherlock had ever bothered to really understand the parameters of different kinds of relationships: they were together, but not as together as they should be.

Sherlock finally understood the flutter in his stomach. He was in love. Madly, oddly, passionately, nauseatingly in love, and when he won the bet he was going to ask John to love him back because it was the only thing in this entire world worth asking for, and if John said no, then Sherlock would just sit there in 221b for the rest of his days and stare at pictures of otters and hedgehogs kissing.

He had to prepare for the possibility that that was exactly how he'd spend the rest of his life, dejected, rejected by the only person who would ever matter, and so he spent the last ten days of the bet lining up his queue with pictures of hedgehogs and otters in all manner of embrace. Really, it was remarkable how clever people on Tumblr were, and also slightly preposterous, but if people wanted to waste their time drawing pictures of otters in blue scarves and hedgehogs in cream jumpers, who was Sherlock to fault them?

And that's how far he'd fallen, he thought to himself. That's how far. He couldn't even come up with a proper criticism or scathing put-down of these half-crazed otter aficionados.

When his queue was full, which he now knew happened once a person had three-hundred posts lined up and ready to go, Sherlock adjusted the settings to post twenty-five posts per day, which would bring him right to the end of the four weeks and the end of the bet, and hopefully, into John's arms.

Sherlock's numbers skyrocketed, and by the next to last day Sherlock had a very respectable 3,546 followers.

The first thing he did the next day was set up each of their laptops on the coffee table, sit on the couch, and wait for John to wake up. Sherlock had already called John in sick, so he knew there'd be no reason they couldn't compare numbers right away, declare Sherlock the winner, and get on to the good stuff.

John appeared soon enough, insisted on making tea and toast before logging in—god, it was like waiting for your parents on Christmas morning!—and then plopped himself down next to Sherlock while grumbling about somebody's impatience. Sherlock didn't care who was bothering John with their impatience, he just wanted to move ahead to the part where John said yes and they could kiss and maybe rub their penises against each other.

There was a quick review of the rules and then Sherlock logged onto his computer. He turned his screen toward John and made a sweeping _voila_  motion with his arm.

John's mouth fell open. “How on earth did you manage to get so many followers in such a relatively short period of time? You haven't done anything but work on this for the entire four weeks, have you? No cases, not even looking at that stack of cold cases that Lestrade gave you for your birthday, am I right? Well, I have to say, I'm impressed. But I do believe you will find,” he said as he logged into his own account, “that—oh. Oh, shite. You've got to be kidding.”

“What? What's happened?

“I've lost three followers overnight.” John turned his laptop to face Sherlock and started laughing. “Look at what that means.”

Sherlock looked, then bounced up from the sofa and shouted. He started pacing the living room, cursing himself for not having seen this as a possible outcome. How could it be, though? It was never twins and it was never a tie! He didn't realize he was tugging at his hair and muttering under his breath until he felt John's hand on his arm and heard him say, “Hey, shhh, it's all right. Sherlock, I didn't know this was so important to you.”

“It's a matter of life or, well, maybe not death, but it was very much about quality of life, mine and yours both, and I was sure, I was convinced I would win, simply because I wanted it that much. I very much wanted to be able to win so that I could ask you … argh, this shouldn't be so hard, and now after all of this, a month of fucking otters, and otters fucking, John, for the love of all that is holy, after a month of building up to this, I can't even do it! Do you have any idea, any at all—”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. I really do.”

“Tied! What do the rules say about breaking a tie? Do neither of us get our ask, or do we both? It's such a waste!”

“No, it's not. At least it doesn't have to be.” And with that John grabbed his laptop and made a few definitive taps with one finger. He dropped the computer back down to the desk and said, “There. Now I'm following you, and so you've won by one.”

Sherlock stood and stared, poleaxed. “You made yourself lose? Why would you do that?”

“Because it was important to you. Because I don't give a rat’s arse how many people on Tumblr like me or follow me or whatever. I care that you do. Like me. Or, whatever. So what is it that had you so worked up that you looked like you would have an aneurysm if you didn't win?”

Sherlock couldn't stop now, not after what John had just done for him. He could have followed John back and tied the numbers again, but he was too selfish. He needed this too badly.

“I was going to ask for one thing, for a particular action, but then I thought what if you agreed and then that was it, and nothing else followed? So then I thought it would be better if I asked you to return a sentiment but that doesn’t make sense because not even I, Sherlock Holmes, can make you feel something that you may not feel. I can only wish, John.”

“Tell me what you were going to ask for, Sherlock.”

“But what if it’s the only chance I get?”

“I have a feeling it won’t be. That’s all I can tell you right now.”

“Can I say all the things at once?”

“Say what you need to say.”

“I won our wager in large part because I figured out what people like to see, and what they like to see are pictures of animals that personify you and I in compromising situations. In a discussion with one follower in particular, whose name may be interesting to you at a later time, it was made clear to me that the majority of our followers feel that you and I are meant to be together, that you love me but I have not been able to recognize that sentiment for what it is, and that you do not recognize the nature of my sentiment for you. This hypothesis was further proved when you gave me the winning count, out of some act of selflessness on your part, and in exchange, I’d like to ask you to kiss me, but only if the kiss means that you feel for me the way I think you feel for me. If you do not feel the same way, then I’d ask you not to kiss me, because that would be more than I could bear, John.”

It was more than Sherlock could stand, to spread his usual reserve of steadfastness so thin, to be speared on the reach of his own heart, spilling open everything he had worked so hard to protect for so long, and so he pulled John forward by the collar of his shirt and then tilted him up with his hands on either side of his face, and he kissed him. When he couldn’t kiss him any longer for fear of passing out, he rested his forehead on the top of John’s head and breathed, and when John said, “Yes, of course, I’ll love you. Of course I will. I already do, you fool. Of course I do,” Sherlock thought he might pass out for real.

Not content with a sample size of one, Sherlock kissed John again, again and again, and when he felt sure he had enough kisses to safely say that love was at play, he moved away long enough to post a picture of an otter and a hedgehog in flagrante, which caused a sizable subset of Tumblr to go into a reblogging frenzy, which resulted in the Tumblr servers crashing for approximately sixteen hours. When the site came back online, Sherlock and John were not really surprised to see they had each gained several thousand followers, no small percentage of which were porn bots.

Sherlock made sure to show John the gifs of the lookalike actors doing lewd things to each other, John admitted to having already seen them, and they got busy reenacting each and every scene.

When they emerged from their newly shared bedroom several days later, they each deleted their individual blogs and created a new one called _sherlotter-and-hedgeson_ , and everyone was happy.

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> [ALL](https://sherlockwillneverdie.tumblr.com/post/129096074104/sherlotter-and-johnhog-take-a-bath)   
>  [THE](https://kikal.tumblr.com/post/157030011846/the-fact-that-when-you-search-hedgehog-and-otter)   
>  [OTTER](https://stoppopit.tumblr.com/post/122901439820)   
>  [AND](https://eror7o7.tumblr.com/post/157603255265/i-was-doing-my-homework-and-somehow-this-happen)   
>  [HEDGEHOG](https://wonang1214.tumblr.com/post/159230848835/otter-sherlock-i-love-him)   
>  [GRAPHICS](https://sherlockwillneverdie.tumblr.com/post/131500995014/sherlotter-and-johnhog-in-the-winter)   
>  [HERE](http://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/159270832845/i-recently-introduced-my-friend-j-to-the-concept)   
>  [AND](https://distressed-doodles.tumblr.com/post/146825029713/decided-to-draw-john-and-sherlock-in-their-true)   
>  [HERE](http://jedidame.tumblr.com/post/25457610537/otterbatch-has-thought-it-through)


End file.
